Week 08: A week of phone addiction

Giorgia

Data gathering:This week I reported every time I checked my iPhone detailing what I was checking, where I was and what other task I was performing at the moment. Yes, I do have to cut the cord with my iPhone (as most of human beings I know, I guess). I noticed that when I was able to resist the nicotine-like urge to check it, I had a leisurely nice time but with an undercurrent of anxiety, I admit.

Data drawing:After seeing so many data entries, I was interested in exploring if there are correlations between where I check my phone and what I do with it – (and there are some interesting correlations, have a look!) – so I wanted my drawing to reflect it.

Beautiful gifts:Looking at our cards so far I am really happy with Dear Data: I think we found a nice and humane way to measure personal experiences without reducing it to a simple quantification: every week we try to add qualitative little stories, every week we understand how to categorize our data collections in order to make it meaningful to each others, and every week I see Stefanie’s postcards as a lovely gift to wait for!I also enjoy saving some time for it: it takes time both to draw and to read the card, as they are dense and rich with content; but this is our way to make the time to get to know each other! Drawing the postcard is my to communicate “I am thinking about you”!

The Process:

Stefanie

Data-gathering: I only gathered data on the reason that I touched my phone in the first instance. So I may have picked up the phone to check messages, then checked my email, checked twitter, took a selfie, took another selfie, took another selfie from a more flattering angle, then played a game, but even so: only the messages will count.

I gathered loads of data this week, but it’s just didn’t feel as interesting or meaningful as some of the other data we were gathering. Digital-themed data has an emptiness that just doesn’t compare to the warmth and emotional aspect of tracking human interactions…

Data memories:There was a tiny data void when I was trying to transfer from a delayed United flight from London to one of the few flights to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I was speaking at a conference. I’m pretty sure that I was checking my phone’s clock a million times a minute as I ran to the next flight, leaving my luggage behind in Newark and running from security to the gate in my socks, shoes in my hands. But who knows the actual number? It’s somewhere in ‘left luggage’, I’m sure.

Data drawing:I found this week slightly frustrating: I spent quite a bit of time trying different, more scrawled and sketched visualisation methods in a sketchbook, but then the final piece felt so sterile and neat. It wasn’t quite what I had envisioned. It’s easy to see where I was on flights this week, though: I was mainly using my phone for music then!

I think that I’ve been using more drawing pens recently, because Giorgia was using drawing pens and I liked her cards. However, I don’t know if this is really me: I tend to take all notes and sketches using mechanical pencils (Proper fancy Rotring pencils from Japan, mind). And Giorgia is always drawing with pen, so it makes sense that those are her tools of choice. Perhaps I just need to work with what I feel most comfortable with.